transgressions. For no man's authority seems to extend
farther than his own family; and when, at any time, they join for mutual
defence, or any other purpose, those amongst them who are eminent for
courage or prudence, are directors. How their private quarrels are
terminated is uncertain; but, in the few we saw, which were of little
consequence, the parties concerned were clamorous and disorderly.

Their public contentions are frequent, or rather perpetual; for it
appears, from their number of weapons, and dexterity in using them, that
war is their principal profession. These weapons are spears, _patoos_
and halberts, or sometimes stones. The first are made of hard wood
pointed, of different lengths, from five, to twenty, or even thirty feet
long. The short ones are used for throwing as darts. The _patoo_ or
_emeete_ is of an elliptical shape, about eighteen inches long, with a
handle made of wood, stone, the bone of some sea animal, or green
jasper, and seems to be their principal dependence in battle. The
halbert, or long club, is about five or six feet long, tapering at one
end with a carved head, and at the other, broad or flat, with sharp
edges.

Before they begin the onset, they join in a war-song, to which they all
keep the exactest time, and soon raise their passion to a degree of
frantic fury, attended with the most horrid distortion of their eyes,
mouths, and tongues, to strike terror into their enemies; which, to
those who have not been accustomed to such a practice, makes them appear
more like demons than men, and would almost chill the boldest with fear.
To this succeeds a circumstance, almost foretold in their fierce
demeanour, horrid, cruel, and disgraceful to human nature; which is,
cutting in pieces, even before being perfectly dead, the bodies of their
enemies, and, after dressing them on a fire, devouring the flesh, not
only without reluctance, but with peculiar satisfaction.

One might be apt to suppose, that people, capable of such excess of
cruelty, must be destitute of every human feeling, even amongst their
own party; and yet we find them lamenting the loss of their friends,
with a violence of expression which argues the most tender remembrance
of them. For both men and women, upon the death of those connected with
them, whether in battle or otherwise, bewail them with the most doleful
cries; at the same time cutting their foreheads and cheeks, with shells
or pieces of flint, in large gashes, u